


Ninety-Three: The Musical

by primeideal



Category: Quatrevingt-treize | Ninety-three - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Musicals, Song Lyrics, Vampire Marat, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: Lyrics from the adaptation that wouldn't even be that implausible by Hugolian standards!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lifeisyetfair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisyetfair/gifts).



> In part a gift to the fandom, but I hope you will enjoy Cimourdain (and company), too.
> 
> Some of it is deliberately tongue-in-cheek, others just anachronistic language for the sake of rhyming/heck of it, and other parts are supposed to be fairly earnest because...you know, fighting for progress and the ideal is a good thing!
> 
> I have no particular music in mind, and no written stage directions, either, though I guess some of them can be inferred.

1\. The Bonnet-Rouge

Radoub: Danger could hide behind each tree;  
There may be enemies and spies.  
Beware of whatever might be  
Lying in wait. What's this surprise!

Vivandière: A mother, children in her wake.  
This hollow tree serves as their bed;  
Whatever berries they can take  
Are what serves in their dinner's stead.

Radoub: What is your name, citizeness?

Michelle: Michelle Fléchard.  
Radoub:                               How have you come  
To be in such awful distress?  
And where exactly are you from?

Michelle: From Brittany?  
Radoub:                         From France?  
Michelle:                                            Sir, no.  
I'm not a Frenchman proud like you.  
My husband, rest his soul, did go  
And get himself killed.  
Vivandière:                  By a blue?

Or by a white?  
Michelle:          A bullet, ma'am.  
My children have nothing to eat.  
And there's the reason why I am  
Out here.  
Vivandière: Find some shoes for your feet!

Radoub: We, once the red cross, now red hats  
Proud children of the fatherland  
Shall fathers be to them, and that's  
An order, comrades! Understand?

Vivandière: Hurrah the revolution, lads!  
Hurrah our babes, Alain, René,  
And small Georgette! Brave moms and dads,  
A new beginning dawns today!

2\. The Claymore

Sailors: The cannon is loose!  
They're gonna cook our goose!  
Someone forgot to tie a chain  
And now we're going down the drain!  
Now it's destroying all our might  
And we can't even start a fight  
The battle's lost before its beginning  
All hope is gone, no chance of winning  
Our luck is departed  
Since the guns haven't started!

Gunner: Good sirs, not so fast!  
The die is not yet cast!  
I'll atone for my failing  
In matters involving sailing  
Yes, I'll wrestle with that gun  
Until the battle is won.  
In a stroke of mercy and grace  
I'll secure it back in place!  
Nothing more shall be destroyed;  
We won't sink into the void!

Captain: Mister High-Security VIP,  
If it would be your pleasure,  
Deal with this unfortunate man of sea,  
And dispose of him at your leisure.

Lantenac: For his service and his fettle,  
Give him your own medal!  
And for the skill he hasn't got  
The fellow ought be shot!

Captain: We may be heading to our doom  
Fighting against a fiercely-armed rival.  
But some light must outlast this gloom,  
Some signal of our cause's survival.  
Who will bear this hero to shore?  
Who will carry on our war?

Halmalo: Good sir, if I may not be meek;  
I am the fellow whom you seek.

3\. The Boat

Halmalo: Behind me all my fellows die  
Fate chose me alone to spare.

Lantenac: May I be bold and question why?  
Why is this task yours to bear?

Halmalo: To take your life into my hands!  
My brother's life you curtailed,  
Now justice cries out and demands  
Vengeance for him who once sailed.

Lantenac: Kill me, and la Vendée will lose  
Its new leader, brave and bold;  
We'll fall to rebel bandits whose  
Troops reject the ways of old.

Halmalo: Forgive my arrogance, my lord.  
I live for our common cause.  
I know the secret tunnels bored  
By laborers without pause.

Lantenac: You peasants with your peasant tales!  
No matter, you may serve yet.  
Repeat after me these back trails;  
And pledge to never forget...

4\. Tellmarch

Tellmarch: Sixty thousand pieces of gold  
For delivering Lantenac's head!  
Tell me, what does it feel like, Marquis,  
To know you're wanted living or dead?

Lantenac: I've seen many strange things in my life  
Some men who are rich and some poor  
But our times grow stranger by the day,  
I didn't know peasants could read before.  
Will you turn me in for a reward?

Tellmarch: You must come to my house straightaway.  
Though my floor is but made of seaweed  
You can be safe and live through the day.

Lantenac: But why are you doing this thing?

Tellmarch: It is out of my richness I give.  
Since I have a wealth that you lack;  
The right of a free man to live.  
Your head would bring wealth to the cruel--  
Come take shelter, then, in my wood.  
On one condition, though, sir;  
That you have come here to do good.

René-Jean: She played with me this morning,  
We played a schoolgirl's game;  
Why then should anybody laugh  
Tonight I sing her name?

Gros-Alain: Na, na, na,  
Na, na, na,  
René-Jean has a sweetheart,  
Na, na, na!

Lantenac: Himself he signed the order,  
He did it without shame,  
He seeks my life to shoot me down,  
Gauvain has signed his name!

Blues: Fight, fight, fight!  
Fight, fight, fight!  
Hail Marquis de Lantenac,  
Fight, fight, fight!

Tellmarch: Half-dead I found this woman,  
They'd shot her to the bone  
And all the while I asked myself,  
"If only I had known!"

5\. Marat

Marat: Good morning, fellow citizens, my name is Marat,  
I lurk in extreme factions where I like to scheme and plot.  
We carry out fatal commands when writing in the lobby  
And I know well that every statesman needs to have a hobby.  
Danton cares about European powers across the sea,  
Robespierre worries about the French war back in Brittany.  
But I know that it's in the city where the real threat lies,  
Where foes across the card-tables discuss who lives and dies,  
Where suffering peasants feel the inflating price of gold  
And I'm six freaking thousand years old!

I know the most high-minded ideals, which I will espouse,  
You'll never catch me visiting that jerk Robespierre's house,  
I subside on a diet of raw vitriol and wrath,  
To keep my health up, my doctor tells me to take a bath,  
I scoff at kings and queens, even upon my playing cards;  
I've seen all of the plays by the most scandalizing bards.  
Like "Loving in the Village," more provocative than tame  
Or "The Mother of A Family Which Was Rescued From Some Flame"  
I know you can't even buy a loaf of bread for two bucks,  
And Robespierre will guillotine Danton.

Danton:                                                       Shucks.

Robespierre: Good afternoon, Cimourdain. Bad news to say the least.

Marat: While you're catching us all up, explain who let in the priest?

Robespierre: La Vendée has a leader, who holds forth with every sally  
Of arrows and of gunmen. It's to him the peasants rally.  
Though their armies may be backward, it's true that he's inspiring,  
They have home-turf advantage and are bound to keep on firing.  
So this Marquis de Lantenac--

Cimourdain:                                Oh great.

Marat:                                                           Wait. What, you've met?

Cimourdain: Let's just say he's an adversary I won't soon forget.  
If his success in attracting some troops to follow him  
Is like his love life, our odds in La Vendée have turned grim.

Danton: But our forces are bigger, technologically superior,  
And soon will be kicking Marquis de Lantenac's posterior.  
They're led by a young nobleman with triumphs to his name  
Who already is earning great victory and fame  
And fights with vim and vigor, and lots of zest and zeal,  
But all for the republic, and for this grand ideal.

Cimourdain: It sounds like we already have the mightier power?  
So can we let Citizen Marat here head back to his shower?

Marat: We hope that all is by the book, done according to law,  
But this nobleman in command does have a little flaw  
Beyond being a noble, which of course doesn't look great  
Since we are trying to be a more republican state,  
But sometimes he is clement, and lets bad guys off the hook,  
Which defeats the whole purpose of doing things by the book.  
We must be inexorable and willing to get tough!  
Who heard of revolutionaries not hardcore enough?

Cimourdain: I'll go and keep an eye on him and make sure he's on task;  
I'm super hardcore and I'll make him do all that we ask!

Robespierre: You sure a priest can handle all the vengeance, progress, lark!

Cimourdain: I'm very sure, citizen, and resemble that remark.

Danton: Both nobles and priests can serve our cause, each one in their way.  
Please sign our form, citizen, and you can start off today!

Cimourdain: Authority...to look out for...Gauvain? Um! Sure! Of course!  
I'm honored and I'm proud to serve! Somebody get my horse!

Marat: My name is citizen Marat, some view me with disgust,  
But though you might not like my head, you're gonna love my bust.  
I show up to the Convention in my tiger PJs  
And everybody realizes that fur's the latest craze.  
Some people look beyond the sea and dream across the borders  
But I know that it's here at home where I can give the orders.  
Though some may say the price of goods is getting quite inflated  
My view of myself is one thing that can't be overstated.  
The time for change has come upon us, it's time to be bold  
Cause I'm six freaking thousand years old!

6\. The Convention

Victor Hugo: These are the summits  
This is the height  
Out of the shadows  
This is the light  
Sometimes there's a certain thinness in the air  
Sometimes all the burdens are difficult to bear  
Sometimes we don't see clearly all that comes to mind  
But it's always darkness that we're leaving behind.

Here many voices echo and find one common speech  
Here many hands stretch higher for dreams beyond their reach  
What has come before is no match for what happens here  
But we'll forge a foundation to last far beyond this year.  
What we first go seeking is not always what we find  
But it's always darkness that we're leaving behind.

These are the summits  
This is the peak  
Here all the restless  
Find what they seek  
Sometimes we will burn away before we build  
Sometimes the hands of the great have saved as well as killed  
Sometimes the keys of power loose as well as bind  
But it's always darkness that we're leaving behind.

 

7\. La Véndee

Victor Hugo: Those goshdarn country bumpkins  
Are oh-so-superstitious!  
But when they get into a fight  
Well, even the women are vicious!  
They speak in goofy dialects  
And don't even know proper French!  
They live underground in the pits  
Not just waging war in a trench!

In the abysses where they reside  
They still prize the old way of things;  
Just as they look up to their priests,  
They dream of the faraway kings.  
But they take the face of phantasms  
As they kill from beneath the ground.  
Where freedom has not lit their souls,  
By prejudice thus are they bound.

So all men are the sons of their soils,  
Every land has its character, thus;  
And I'm sure you'll be frightfully glad  
That the forces of progress (read: us)  
Ever onward and upward must climb  
Till we're all brothers in one nation.  
Though this future may yet be far off  
We'll await it with anticipation!

8\. Healing

Gauvain: You have saved my life for the second time;  
Out of all my illness and distress  
You have brought me to health, and today I'm  
At the peak of joy and happiness!  
Now when all my gambits on their own  
Could not keep me safe from bitter spite  
Still I cheer to know that I'm not alone,  
Still you guide me forward from the night!

Cimourdain: I have taught you everything I know  
Now I regain my place by your side.  
Who are you now that I have missed you grow?  
A protege in whom I can take pride?

Gauvain: Our prisoner awakes! Give him a bed,  
Make sure he heals as quickly as he can.

Danse-a-l'Ombre: I'd rather be shot by you instead,  
Fool White, do away with me like a man.

Gauvain: It is the King's name that you would kill;  
It is in the Republic's that we save.

Cimourdain: For all he has to learn, there's much more, still.  
Does he not know that this year's war is grave?

Michelle: You have saved my life, but for what end?  
Wounds within the heart hurt deeper yet.  
My children wander lost, without a friend  
I bear a pain I never can forget.  
If only I had died, that I might keep  
My watch over them, though I went unseen.  
But none can understand a pain so deep  
Unless they too had felt a loss that keen.

Tellmarch: You will make me question who I am;  
Just as I have questioned what I've done.  
Did I save a wolf to kill a lamb  
Or atone, healing you from that gun?

Cimourdain: We must journey on; the warbells toll.  
Can you handle all that lies in wait?

Gauvain: I will not rest till we've met our goal!  
Lantenac must be made to face his fate.

Cimourdain: But what of the mercy you've displayed?

Gauvain: That is to civilians, not to those  
Who wage war instead of giving aid.  
We reserve a firing squad for foes.

Cimourdain: Not a guillotine? The republic's tool?

Gauvain: Even aristocrats are army men.

Cimourdain: Be careful your beliefs don't make you a fool.

Gauvain: I always take care.

Cimourdain:                         Then we march again.

Michelle: I must journey on. No force on Earth  
Can stop me from seeking my children now.  
The love of a mother brought them to birth;  
The love of a mother will guard them somehow.  
I will walk by every unknown pass  
Till my shoes disappear and until my feet bleed.  
I will beg for scraps, I will live on grass,  
I have no shame; I have known need.  
I will wander in the fight. I don't fear the war.  
I have seen battle at its worst.  
There is nothing they can do to me anymore.  
I will find my children or die first.

9\. Negotiations

L'Imânus: My name is L'Imânus, let's just keep it real  
We have some cute hostages and want to make a deal  
The odds against us are two hundred thirty-six to one  
I don't think either side here thinks a fight would be that fun.  
If you attack this tower of six stories, not much higher,  
Then I give you my word, I'll set the library on fire  
And the three kids we took from that batallion of yours  
Will die a painful death locked up behind its iron doors.  
If you don't want this to occur, then please let us go free  
Back to the simple farm country where we lived happily  
Before your civilizing mission came along and killed our kin  
And whatever you do, don't break the door down and come in.

Gauvain: Guéchamp, send for a ladder quickly, from the nearest town.  
If the children are trapped in there, we'll have to get them down.  
I want to get them out safely before tomorrow night.  
Lantenac won't slip through my hands; we need to win this fight!

Guéchamp: This won't be easy, but I think I can find what we need.  
I'll give the order to move out with all deliberate speed.

Cimourdain: The library! Where once I taught you all your abcs.  
How strange that now your great-uncle takes refuge among these  
Peasants and rabble-rousers and he scorns you to your face!  
...not that, of course, in wartime, emotion has any place.

Lantenac: There are nineteen of you, but I could make do with ten  
If half of you wimp out. So don't get funny ideas, men.

Radoub: We're fighting for the honor of our little babies here.  
Can we please lead the charge, and not just all bring up the rear?

Gauvain: Of course. But I'd feel better with a few of you in back  
In case a couple cowards wimp out of our brave attack.

Radoub: They'd better not, since we're favorites by two-thirty-six  
To one...but I'll make sure that everyone coheres and sticks.

Cimourdain: My name is Cimourdain--

Gauvain:                                                  What on Earth does he think is needed?

L'Imânus: You're the priest from this village? Yes, you've been preceded  
By your reputation.

Cimourdain:            I serve the revolution.

L'Imânus: Why are you here, you devil?

Cimourdain:                                           To offer a solution!  
Would you take me captive if you could?

  
L'Imânus:                                                  Where is the punch line?

  
Cimourdain: This isn't a joke; you deal in lives, I offer mine.

L'Imânus: We'd skin you like an animal.

Cimourdain:                                            You'd be free to go.  
You and your seventeen comrades.

L'Imânus:                                         Eighteen?

Cimourdain:                                                     No.  
Give us Lantenac, and the rest of you can walk away.  
You can even kill me, and we can end this today.

L'Imânus: You are ridiculous, this defies belief.  
Lantenac is La Vendée, Lantenac is the chief.  
Lantenac's life is worth more than your hide  
So go shut your mouth and swallow your pride.

Cimourdain: You are my brother and I would embrace you.  
What of your freedom? Who can replace you?

L'Imânus: What of your babies? Do you take my offer?

Cimourdain: Only if it is Lantenac's head you proffer.

L'Imânus: I can't make this any more plain;  
If you call yourself my brother, you must be Cain.  
With Lantenac La Vendée will never part;  
If you won't back down, you might as well start.

10\. The Library

Gros-Alain: I see a bug!  
But the bug can sting.  
René-Jean: Leave her alone,  
She's just doing her thing.  
Georgette: I hear music  
Sounding down below,  
I hear trumpets,  
They're pretty when they blow.

Gros-Alain: I see a monster  
Buzzing, whizzing, by!  
René-Jean: He went to his home  
And he's just a fly.  
Georgette: I hear horses  
Running by my room,  
I hear drumming,  
Boom, boom, boom!

Gros-Alain: I see a beast,  
So naughty when it pricks!  
René-Jean: Watch, they feed us,  
They are tasty sticks.  
Georgette: I hear Mamma,  
When I close my eyes,  
I see the papers fluttering  
Like butterflies.

11\. The Battle

Radoub: You scoundrel, now I've lost an ear!  
You've scratched my shoulder, but that's fine;  
From you there's nothing more to fear.  
I see you took this sword of mine,  
But it won't do much good--unless--  
Aha! Your stock of guns, you cad.  
Be off with all that you profess.  
I'll trap your friends, for I have had  
Instruction from a mastermind;  
Good day, Gauvain! Please, by your leave  
Let me be first to let us find  
What's up there next. And don't you grieve  
The matter of my ear, alas.

Gauvain: You'd go if I said aye or nay.  
Of course you have the right to pass,  
You've done a great service this day.

Radoub: Oh, you again. You shall not flee!  
L'Imânus: I'll die before you kill again.  
Nor will you save the burning three,  
Nor catch up with my fellow men.

Lantenac: The end is near. Let us prepare  
To die and in our turn to kill.  
Grand-Francoeur: There is a noise...is someone there?  
Halmalo: I pledged I'd aid you, and I will!

Lantenac: Wait...Halmalo? How'd you get in?  
Halmalo: A secret passage. Like I said.  
Lantenac: It seems as if we cannot win  
But there's no need to end up dead.

Halmalo: In fifteen minutes we can make  
Escape into the forest's heart.  
But there's no time to wait or take  
Another way; let's move and start!

Gauvain: I saw a cart near the plateau.  
Where is the ladder that we sought?

Cimourdain: The cart came from the town below  
But the ladder's not what it brought.

Gauvain: What then? For it is tall and fierce  
And moves not under its own power.

Cimourdain: The guillotine, which was to pierce  
Lantenac, had we won this hour!

Michelle: Help! Fire! Ah! My children die!  
Is there no help, is there no aid?  
Has God ignored my prayer? And why?  
I've come this far to be dismayed!  
The oldest child is only four,  
The youngest one not even two.  
Have pity, please! Is there no door!  
Save them or let me perish too!

Radoub: Michelle Fléchard! Alive and...well?

Michelle: I am not well; the world is mad!

Radoub: There's stranger things than this to tell;  
Lantenac has returned, and had  
A key to open up the room!  
Long live the Republic! Three cheers!

Lantenac: Long live the king!  
Radoub:                                 From out the tomb  
You've worked a miracle, one hears,  
You may say whatever you've pleased  
Now that this family's reconnected.  
Cimourdain: You're still arrested. Have him seized.  
Lantenac: From you, nothing else was expected.

12\. The Trial

Gauvain: This is the juncture I find myself in.  
This is my great-uncle, my only kin  
Waiting to die in his very own jail;  
Saving three lives, a crime beyond the pale.  
Shall I now execute my flesh and blood,  
And drag our family name back through the mud?

But then when I reckon on the other hand,  
I think of my duty to the fatherland.  
The Republic needs every possible chance;  
To spare Lantenac is to jeopardize France.  
None of us can be safe until he is dead;  
Then ought I not make sure we sever his head?

But when I think back to hand number one  
And I remember what he has just done,  
Giving his freedom other lives to save  
How can I then order him to the grave?  
Is this the Republic we wish to create?  
More cruel than our enemies from the old state?

Lantenac: Back in my day  
When men were men  
And nobles were nobles  
And kings were kings  
And priests were cures  
And now was then  
And pens were quills  
And stuff was things--  
But what's the use  
Of this to me  
Now I am dead?

Gauvain:                Shush! You are free.

Cimourdain: The prisoner?

Gauvain:                             At your command.

Cimourdain: Where's the Marquis?

Gauvain:                                        He's fled the scene,  
Back to his woods and native land.

Cimourdain: I cannot fathom what you mean.

Gauvain: I gave him aid, he made his flight.

Cimourdain: A capital offense?!

Gauvain:                                    That's right!

Guéchamp: The law is the law, and it doesn't care  
About relations or a family affair.  
There is no question that you have disobeyed,  
Justice won't be done until this debt is paid;  
Your emotions have put the republic in danger.

Gauvain: Thanks a bunch. You know, I'd say "don't be a stranger..."

Radoub: Gauvain's a genius at every attack.  
Give him a medal, pat him on the back!  
This kind of law is the literal worst.  
I'd sooner you cut my own head off first.  
This is the person you want to promote!

Cimourdain: I'll put that down as an acquittal vote?

Gentlemen, let us keep this process short;  
By a two-to-one margin, the assembled court  
Has voted in favor of execution.  
Thank you all for serving the revolution.  
Please return the accused back to his cell,  
And fetch some water for the sergeant, as well.

13\. The Dungeon

Cimourdain: From out of these foundations, rising to the air  
We'll build something new, something just and fair;  
Something that our forefathers never foresaw,  
Taxes funding soldiers, all under the law.

Gauvain: Is there room beyond that? What then soars above?  
Where in this republic dwell harmony and love?  
There is room for mercy beyond what's right and just;  
In poets and in flowers there's room for hope and trust.

Cimourdain: These might be nice fancies for a dreamer's state  
But I don't think sunbeams put food on the plate.

Gauvain: Then let us bring forth food from waste thrown in the fields;  
Renew the soil itself, see what the nation yields!

Cimourdain: Where would women fit in this world strange and new?

Gauvain: Women will serve men--and men serve women too.

Cimourdain: What about a child? From who should it learn?

Gauvain: Why, from many teachers, each one in their turn.  
From its parents, who first have a child to raise.  
From its master, who shows it the world and its ways.  
From its city, once the young child is grown,  
From the nation it's proud to claim as its own;  
From all of humanity, each child's kin;  
And from the divine spirit inviting it in  
Now that it has grown from the days of its birth  
To a proud citizen and a child of the earth.

Cimourdain: And speaking of Earth, Earth to you--please get real.  
It's all well and good to speak of the ideal  
But stick to what you can really achieve,  
Not cockbrain schemes that no one will believe.

Gauvain: Let's try not to rule progress out, for a start.  
I learned from the best; I must follow my heart,  
If I live like tomorrow cannot arrive,  
There's no way that I'll get to see it go live.  
We struggle for progress till some future age  
Gets to settle questions of earnings and wage.

Cimourdain: Why couldn't I teach silence?--How fast you talk!

Gauvain: Please don't mind my speed, I'm sort of on the clock.

Cimourdain: Then what do you think of the day that's at hand?

Gauvain: I absolve it as I would lightning in a land  
That has suffered from drought. Out of fire and blast  
The storm clears away to make room for what might last.  
With a compass to point through the storm, who is lost?  
So I follow my conscience, whatever the cost.  
No matter how simple the future may seem,  
It is still on its way, even more than a dream.

14\. Sunrise

Victor Hugo: If these walls could talk  
You'd wonder what they'd say  
From everything they've seen  
How little stood today  
The stones have fallen now  
The iron doors now burn  
The fortresses of power  
All crumbled in their turn.  
What once was cruel and old  
Has decayed through the year  
And where torment once dwelt  
Itself has now sensed fear.

If these blades can speak  
You'd think they might explain  
That from an ancient terror  
They're the heirs of pain.  
In rich but bloody soil  
Where tyrants snuff out life  
And tears nourish the land,  
Springs up a bloody knife.  
Uncompromising light  
Comes blinding from the dark  
Commanding awe and fear  
In patterns bright and stark.

If these trees will sing  
They will not mark our date  
But grow towards the future  
The steady climb of fate.  
The sun will shine its light  
On flowers that will have grown,  
Will cast the same rays on  
Nature's work and our own.  
The stars of heaven are  
The stars of heaven still,  
Their lights will reach us yet,  
Their wills will work their will.


End file.
